Bringing light to the Nike ACG Boots “The Strength Inside” campaign, Nike Sportswear partnered with a handful of high school teens in and around New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore to create a photographic journal representing the concept of “What strength means to you”. The Center for Arts Education (NYC) and the Peace and Love (Philly/B-more) organization brought over 250 kids together for the billboard campaign as one picture from the following neighborhoods/cities were chosen: Queens, Harlem, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Baltimore. The winning entries from each city/borough will have their images displayed on billboards during the month of January in 2009. Two of the winners seen here include Brooklyn winner Kimone Napier (Billboard located at the corner of Flatbush Ave. & Washington Ave., Brooklyn, NY) and Queens winner Cindy Bencosme (Billboard located at the corner of Jamaica Ave & Sutphin Blvd, Queens, NY).
Giving children access to their own forms of personal communication in the public is a vital way to invigorate peoples investment in their community and public space. Not only do the children understand how their ideas can become a part of the public dialogue but also others within the community bear witness to alternative voices controlling the subject matter of visual communication. It can be extremely empowering to individuals and communities alike and should not be taken lightly. This video of Tom14 speaks to the importance of such community interaction.
How then do we consider this project, which is a stunt for Nike, but yet still a legitimate community project? I don't feel able to fully discredit this project solely on the basis of it being advertising because if all outdoor advertising was done similarly, the city would be a much different place. In fact this change in where outdoor visual content is taken from would result in the great businesses of our communities becoming the curators of our cities art and ideas. Instead of simplistic on way messages meant to steal your attention, companies would gain time in our thoughts by bringing the most interesting content to our city streets.
It's a novel idea and one which can make you imagine how other uses of our public environment might suite the city better without directly changing any of the more rigid power structures which exist in a commodity based market system.
What Ban? What Moratorium? New Billboards Go Up Alongside Downtown Freeway
Just another case of outdoor advertising companies doing what they want in our public space. If they can so blatantly disregard the law I don't see why I can't do the same thing. the next post will be a response.
As an early Christmas present to the city, a Los Angeles company has put up three full-sized, double-sided billboards alongside the 110 freeway downtown.
Coming on the heels of the city council passage of a three-month moratorium on approvals of new billboards, the structures looming some sixty feet high were not permitted or inspected by the Department of Building and Safety, and were apparently erected over a single weekend.
The billboards bear no company name, but are identical to a billboard put up the same area last year by L.A. Outdoor Advertising, also without any required permits or inspections. That billboard was ordered removed, and at an appeal hearing, Andrew Adelman, head of Building and Safety, said it was the most blatant case of disregarding city codes he had seen in his years with the department.
Billboard Illegally Erected Alongside 110 Freeway Last Year
The company subsequently filed a lawsuit against the city, challenging the constitutionality of its ban on new billboards. Keith Stephens, president of the company, was interviewed on KCET’s recent “Billboard Confidential” and claimed that the city was unfairly discriminating against his company because it had allowed larger companies to put up new billboards and supergraphic signs in special Sign Supplemental Use Districts and as part of community redevelopment agreements.
The multi-ton billboard structures would normally require the submission of structural drawings and calculations, and the foundations for the supporting columns would be inspected for proper depth and steel reinforcement before any concrete was placed. One of the billboards, at 11th and Blaine Streets, appears to be no more than 20 feet from the edge of the freeway.
One of the billboards, at the site of the Plumbers Union Local 78 on James Woods Blvd., is displaying advertising, but the other two have not yet been put into service.
Coca-Cola ads are placed over the windows of subway cars in a pilot program to discourage scratched graffiti. (Photo: New York City Transit)
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority continues to find new ways to rent its subway real estate to advertisers. Joining the tunnels, station stairs, columns, subway insides, subway outsides, station turnstiles: subway windows.
As Gothamist pointed out last week, red Coca-Cola ads are now covering a number of subway windows, as part of a 30-day pilot program. They are being used on a single eight-car A train where four of the cars have ads covering their large windows (though not their door panes). None of the windows on the other four cars are covered.
Despite the M.T.A. budget shortfall, transit officials say that advertising revenue is not the main motivation for the program. Instead, the sprawling ads have a practical purpose. The first is to reduce what officials call “scratchiti,” or scratched graffiti on the windows.
Scratchiti has become more popular over the past decade as more cleaning agents were developed to fight traditional graffiti. Scrachitti is a major vandalism problem in the subways, costing the system more than $2.5 million a year to replace the glass and covering it with protective Mylar. One man was arrested last month for scratchitti after he was caught in the act by a cameraphone.
Paul J. Fleuranges, a spokesman for New York City Transit, said the agency hoped that the film, called Scotchcal, would cut down on the frequency of scratchitti. The vinyl graphic film, made by 3M, is widely used to wrap buses, because a it allows a full image to be printed on the outside, while the little perforated holes allows people (in theory) to look outside.
The other benefit transit officials are hoping for is that the film will save on energy costs, as the covered windows reduce the amount of hot sun that enters subway cars.
“The car equipment people have for a long time sought to use tinted windows in an attempt to cut down on that ’sun soak’ effect; just like tinted windows reduce the warmth of the sun on a passenger vehicle and help keep the car cooler and assist in the A.C. cooling the car more efficiently,” Mr. Fleuranges wrote in an e-mail message.
Of course, this aspect of the pilot, given that it is December, will be harder to test.
Mr. Fleuranges said the pilot program is actually free to the M.T.A., because Coca-Cola paid for the ads, and CBS Outdoor, which handles subway advertising, threw in the labor.
And because you can see out of the windows but not necessarily into the car, a number of people have pointed out the potential security hazards. It seems like a fertile place to get mugged if you are the only one in a subway car late at night. How will the police know to rescue you?
Mr. Fleuranges said that the Police Department’s transit bureau had been involved in pre-pilot discussions and had viewed the material after it was applied. An e-mail message to the Police Department on the topic has not yet been returned.
Though this project does not get rid of urban blight, the comment is so clear I had to post it. should we not, just like on the internet, have the right to prevent ourselves from viewing ad content in the public? It has been said that the world of social networking and communication via the internet is the next form of public space or the next democratic public forum. If we reserve the right to censor ourselves from advertising in this medium, should we not do the same for the old tried and true public forum, our city streets?
The Pop_Down Project offers an alternative to the “pop up” advertising we encounter on the streets. They write:
On the Internet, getting rid of unsolicited pop-ups is pretty easy. In real life, things are a tad more complicated. The Pop_Down Project aims at symbolically restoring everyone’s right to non-exposure: Just stick a “Close window” button on any public space pollution.
Murals have long been an important part of visual landscape of Los Angeles, particularly in their illustration of the city’s cultural and political history. Unfortunately, murals on private property have been caught up in the recent legal battles between the city and the outdoor advertising industry, which has argued that the city cannot enforce its sign ordinance, including the 2002 ban on new billboards and other forms of “off-site” commercial advertising, if it doesn’t apply the same enforcement to public art murals. As a result, the city has been forced to cite owners of properties with murals for violation of the ban.
But now the city Planning Department has proposed a way to allow these murals, and a joint committee will be discussing the proposal this coming Wednesday, Nov. 19. This proposal essentially allows private property owners to donate an “art easement” to the city for a wall with an existing or proposed mural, thus turning that piece of the property into a public space exempt from the city sign ordinance.
One is done free of charge by residents who by participating in the production of their city space become concerned and involved citizens. The other is paid for by non existent corporate entrepreneurs hellbent on convincing you that the products they are pushing are worth paying attention to. You be the judge of what serves us better.
Is this public space? Should taxi riders be upset with being forced to digest advertisements while they ride through the concrete jungle?
Gothamist by John Del Signore
It seems that more and more taxi TV screens are losing the "off" or "mute" button, turning NYC cabs into hell on wheels. Incensed reader (and big band leader) Gregory Moore writes:
I made the very unpleasant discovery this weekend during a $20 cab ride downtown that those hideous backseat televisions are being re-designed so that they can no longer be turned off, muted or have the volume turned down. As I tried to conduct business on my mobile phone, I continued to be barraged with the same horrendous commercials over and over. Please notify your readers to file a complaint with the Taxi and Limousine Commission over this revolting new "innovation".
Moore goes on to rail against other modern abominations like "dungarees" and "intendos," (kidding) and adds that the driver "said people have actually been stiffing him because they're so pissed at this 'innovation.'"
Ira Goldstein at the Taxi and Limousine Commission assures us the screens are not being changed to eliminate the "off" or "mute" buttons and explains that it's simply a case of technological malfunction. "We have had reports of a handful or less situations such as you're describing and we're currently investigating that. The reports seem to be isolated to one of the three authorized vendors [who manage the TV screens]."
That would be Creative Mobile Technologies, who broadcast NBC and Clear Channel content in over 5,500 cabs citywide. Jesse Davis, the company's president, tells us that "in very small instances, if the touch screen becomes a problem the area can become non-sensitive. And when that happens the car is brought in for service because you can't use it for payment either." Davis insists the malfunction is "very infrequent and quickly remedied."
We started getting jeremiads like Moore's back in July; has anyone else encountered a similar problem? Moore is urging everyone to file a complaint here; the furious rant he sent to the city is after the jump.
"The new forced advertising inside of taxis is no less than being held hostage and made to listen to unwanted noise. Now that the TLC has determined that most thinking riders choose to turn off these backseat televisions, they have made it so that one is FORCED to watch/listen, with no access to on/off or volume. I conduct business from taxis in New York, and this is no less than a violation of my privacy and ability to choose.
"I made a list of all the advertisers that participate in this "innovation" and am going to actively boycott their products, starting with WNBC. Absolutely the worst invasion of privacy I've been forced to be subjected to. I plan to ask the driver if there is an on/off button before entering a cab and will refuse to ride in a cab that does not have one. This is absolutely shameful, in light of rising taxi fares. You should all be ashamed of yourselves for thinking this was acceptable."
Volunteer Billboard Inventory in Council District 11: We’ve Got the Results
This is the kind of community involvement that is needed to even begin to take on and disarm the outdoor advertising industry. I applaud those who volunteered their time and efforts on this project. As one of the comments to this post stated, "We now have something measurable to take to our Neighborhood Councils, Neighborhood associations, the CRA, Planning Commission and to our City Council members." One of the major problems fighting illegal signage is the lack of public awareness and veil of secrecy surrounding the illegality of so much of outdoor advertising.
It seems LA has been over saturated by outdoor advertising, and is seeing a strong community response. A recent New York Times article speaks to the outrage that prompts the kind reaction we are seeing come out of that city. Tensions are high enough to move forward a proposed citywide block-by-block survey and inspection of the estimated 10,000 billboards beginning February 1st. Ban Billboard Blight is skeptical whether or not this will happen "because an assistant City Attorney has said that he expects billboard companies to go to court to challenge whatever fee the city decides to levy to pay for the program."
The district, represented by Councilman Bill Rosendahl, runs from the 405 freeway west to the ocean, and includes Brentwood and Pacific Palisades on the north, and LAX on the south. Here’s what they found:
Total Number of Billboards: 563
Number of Digital (Electronic) Billboards: 17 (a number that may be increasing as you read this)
And what is the most billboard-infested street in the district? The clear winner is Lincoln Blvd. which runs from the Santa Monica border south through Westchester, with a total of 84 billboards. Here are the other streets that qualify for the billboard Hall of Shame.
Santa Monica Blvd. 61
Pico Blvd. 44
Wilshire Blvd. 32
Sepulveda Blvd. 28
Century Blvd. 28
Olympic Blvd. 24
And what company owns most of these signs? No surprise that two of the largest outdoor advertisers in the country take that prize Here are the numbers for the five companies with the largest number of billboards.
Clear Channel 143
CBS Outdoor 136
Vista Media 49
Regency Outdoor 47
Fuel Outdoor 43
There were a total of 34 billboards that had no identification, although the city’s sign ordinance requires all off-site signs to be clearly labeled with the name of the sign owner, the city permit number, and other information.
Many forms of outdoor advertising structure that are located on private property in New York City are illegal because they do not conform to city regulations determined by the Department of Buildings. These rules require permits for advertising structures, which allows the city to keep tabs on outdoor advertising and make decisions about when, where, and how they go up. In the City illegal advertising venues operated by NPA outdoor are overlooked for more pressing issues the DOB must deal with everyday. Provided we had the manpower these illegal advertisements would be removed, though probably not before a major battle was fought over their placement on private property, something the city cannot control. Great examples of this are the NPA outdoor wildposting locations throughout the city.
This new form of advertising I ran into tonight shows the ways in which outdoor advertising can circumnavigate its illegal tendencies in our city space. Being on a private pull down gate, and not a structure in need of a DOB permit, this advertisement is completely legal. Without recourse, the public is expected to endure the onslaught of outdoor advertising which can take advantage of these legal channels.
This raises an important issue for me, and that is the definition of private property when it is in public space. Without a doubt, outdoor advertising effects our public environment, and without being able to control it we kneel before its imposing will. Should we not make an attempt to more thoroughly define how our public space is used in general and declare private property in public, public property. Decisions about how that private space is used, which effects the public, would be left up to all of us, as opposed to the property owner. If as a public, we decide that outdoor advertising is unacceptable, the public would have the right to demand its removal despite it being legal because of its placement on private property, permitted or not.
Long-Awaited Citywide Billboard Inspections to Begin in February: But Will Billboard Companies Sue to Stop It?
Wouldn't it be nice to know definitively how many billboards exist in New York and whether or not they are legal? Los Angeles is proposing to do such a thing and pass the cost on to the outdoor advertising companies. This kind of transparency is unheard of in the world of outdoor advertising, something I found out first hand when attempting to get numbers on subway, phone kiosk and other outdoor advertisements in NYC. This kind of research or public information is exactly what is needed to call to arms the average individual who doesn't contemplate how overwhelming outdoor advertising is. Upon receipt of this information I would expect the average citizen to have a much stronger, and visceral reaction to public advertising in general.
Almost seven years after the L.A. City Council voted to conduct a block-by-block survey and inspection of the estimated 10,000 billboards in city, the Department and Building and Safety is proposing to start the program on Feb. 1 next year. Whether or not this actually happens is open to question, though, because an assistant City Attorney has said that he expects billboard companies to go to court to challenge whatever fee the city decides to levy to pay for the program.
And what is that fee the deep-pocketed billboard companies might find so onerous? The building department proposes to charge $186 per billboard structure for a three-year inspection period. This would pay for three field inspectors to conduct the actual survey and enter the information into a billboard database, plus a supervising inspector and a clerk. The information gathered would be compared to permit documents submitted by the billboard companies, and any billboards erected or altered illegally would be ordered taken down or brought into compliance with their permits.
The four companies that sued in 2002 to stop the program–Clear Channel, CBS Outdoor, Regency Outdoor, and Vista Media–have already agreed to the fee in a 2006 lawsuit settlement. According to inventories submitted by the city, the four companies own 6,581 signs, which leaves an estimated 3,500 signs owned by other companies that would be covered by the latest proposal.
What will the inspectors actually be doing in the field, to complete a process estimated to take 2.7 years? According to Frank Bush, chief inspector of the Code Enforcement Bureau, inspectors will be “measuring the distance from the property lines to the sign structure; setting up a measuring device to determine the height and size of the sign; actually measuring the height and size of each structure; logging the measurements; comparing the actual measurements against information on a permit or documentation supplied by the sign company; and inspecting each sign structure in terms of code compliance for structural safety and adequacy of the electrical installations for lighted signs.”
What if billboard companies fail to provide copies of their permits? In that case the department will research its own records, for which it will bump the fee for the three-year inspection period to $342. Why so much for a minor task? The answer, apparent to anyone who has attempted on their own to comb through records in search of billboard permit information, is that it’s not minor at all, but a daunting, often frustrating job.
Bush says as much in a detailed memo laying out the proposed terms of the inspection program:
“Locating relevant permits is a tedious and time-consuming process. Not all billboards have been assigned their own separate and distinct address. Some billboards have been assigned a separate address based upon historical practices for the convenience of the Department of Water and Power and other purposes to allow for billing and a dedicated electrical meter to the billboard company. Many other billboards have permits indexed to the address of the property on which they were initially constructed, which address often changed over time as areas developed and lots were split. Many others have permits indexed to a commercial development address which includes dozens and possibly hundreds of permits in cases where the billboard is constructed upon a large commercial property or mini-shopping center. Thus, to locate a billboard permit LADBS must frequently search permits over a range of addresses.
“To view actual permits a BMI [note: inspector] must physically pull the corresponding microfilm reels, search the reel for the permit desired and review the permit to determine whether it relates to the sign structure in question. Assuming that the correct permit is located, the information on the permit (type of sign, dimensions, single or double face, orientation, sign location and plot plan) must be interpreted. Often, the information is handwritten and the record of poor quality. This information can now be compared with the field conditions and any differences noted. These decisions must be made in order to decide if violations exist and whether to issue any enforcement orders for code violations.”
The fees and related approvals for hiring inspectors now go to the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee and then to the full City Council. Will this program which was a critical adjunct to the city’s 2002 ban on new billboards actually get underway in February? Will the billboard companies sue and tie it up in court for another half dozen years, in the meantime putting up digital billboards and enjoying other concessions handed them by the 2006 lawsuit settlement?
Supergraphic Signs: Are They Fire Safety Hazards? Councilman Says “Yes”
The language used by many anti billboard and general advertising blight advocates is troubling to me. I am well aware of the fact that in our culture a legal battle is often more immediately effective in the removal of outdoor advertising than a discussion about the negative consequences, to ourselves, and our city environment. The problem is these efforts remove outdoor advertising only to see it re-posted in the same location at a later time, or moved to another place entirely. In order to fully reform our city space to function for those people who live in that space, residents must understand their relationship to the city public and what that space should offer them. I help produce the illegal billboards website, which locates un-permitted illegal signage in New York, but as far as I'm concerned all outdoor advertising is illegal.
Almost a year ago, city building inspectors raised this issue at a meeting of the Board of Building and Safety Commissioners.
These huge signs wrapped over the entire sides of buildings and covering windows could impede firefighters in an emergency, they said. And because almost all the signs have been put up without permits or inspections, they added, there isn’t any way to know if the material or manner of installation meets fire safety standards.
Now, City Councilman Jack Weiss wants the fire department to conduct sweeps to identify hazardous supergraphic signs, and get them immediately removed. At a press conference yesterday on Wilshire Blvd. with a huge supergraphic as a backdrop, Weiss also said he would introduce an ordinance to ban unsafe materials and installations.
“Supergraphics are going up all around the City and the advertising they carry has blocked views and architecture, but today we know that some of these supergraphics also are blocking escape routes and posing a safety hazard for people inside,” Weiss said.
A Fire Department official estimated that there are 90-100 such signs now installed on buildings throughout the city. Because these signs fall under the city’s 2002 ban on new off-site advertising signs, a number have been cited by building inspectors, but one sign company, World Wide Rush, sued the city and this past summer obtained a federal court injunction against enforcement of the ban.
The city council just this week received a communication from City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo regarding a closed-door meeting for a “settlement discussion” in that case. By now, everyone knows that the settlement Delgadillo negotiated with Clear Channel and other billboard companies in 2006 has turned out to be disastrous for the city, so stay tuned.
My good friend Ava Heller made me aware of a wonderful discussion that took place last night at the School of Visual Arts. The panel included Marc and Sara Schiller of the Wooster Collective, Elbow Toe, Thomas Beale of Honey Space, and Frank Anselmo who teaches "Unconventional: Guerilla Advertising" at SVA. Amy Wilson moderated the talk in which "The panelists will discuss the history of street art, how art and business have blurred on the city streets, and what recent mainstream attention means for the art form: Is it a blessing or a curse?"
I was interested in the fact that art and business blurred on the city streets a long time ago, and how these panelists might define the differences and similarities between the two, if they exist.
Elbow Toe remarked that after ten years of creating ad content he decided to stop pushing product and imbue his life with personal meaning by creating street art. He is a classically trained painter. Marc and Sara Schiller seemed to keep hitting on the idea that "good" street art creates intimate city moments. Shared experiences within the city space where messages or folly were exchanged to the betterment of both parties.
They seemed to be explaining street art as something which is deeply personal for the creator and viewer. The methods and tactics used in street art are all in service of this simple idea of creating an interactive space out of our normal city environment.
My immediate question was what are the problems facing outdoor advertising which uses these same tactics? Does advertising which uses the methods of street art retain a similar potency?
The answer lies in the definition of what that "intimate" moment looks like. Street art tactics often use surprise, serendipity, and amusement to draw in the viewer, creating a space where the unexpected moment becomes a connection between the viewer and what is viewed. That connection defines an interaction in which ideas are exchanged between both parties. Street art, being an offering, asks nothing more of the viewer than to bring what he or she has to bear on the situation. This open ended conversation, started by the artwork, gives in that it provides opportunity without asking for anything in return. Street art advertising, which uses these same tactics of surprise, is different in that the motivation is not an open ended conversation, but the transfer of a singular idea, the recognition of product. The use of street art methods then becomes a wolf in sheep's clothing, drawing you in to relay a message as opposed to invite conversation. The lack of exchange is what renders the moment impotent, not the methods by which it draws you in.
The difference between the two is relatively black and white. Using the same methods, street art manages to invest thought in the public environment while street art advertising attempts to solidify and control thought in the public environment. One gives and one takes. Simple as that.
Question For AIA Panel: Is It Time to Ban Billboards?
This is the type of open discussion needed about outdoor advertising in general. Thanks to Ban Billboard Blight for their post.
Are billboards incompatible with the practice of architecture, which aims–theoretically, at least– to enhance the visual environment of the city? Or should outdoor advertising be integrated into architecture, thus providing financial benefits that will make projects more feasible? These and other questions will be put to a panel at a discussion entitled “Is It Time To Ban Billboards?”, sponsored by the urban design committee of the L.A. Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) on Nov. 12. Panelists will include anti-blight activists, as well as lobbyists for developers who want to include significant advertising signage in their projects.
When: Wed., Nov. 12, 7-9 p.m
Where: AIA Los Angeles 3780 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 800 Los Angeles, CA 90010
Panelists: Kevin E. Fry - President, Scenic America Dennis Hathaway - President, The Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight Con Howe - Managing Director of The CityView Los Angeles Fund and Former Director of Planning of the City of Los Angeles Craig Lawson - President, Craig Lawson & Co., LLC Jeff McConnell - Vice President, Arnie Berghoff & Associates
Moderator: John Kaliski, AIA - Principal, URBAN STUDIO
The public is invited, but space is limited, so anyone wanting to attend should RSVP to will@aialosangeles.org
Last Saturday I was walking through Union Square around 6:30pm, and came across a fantastic scene. In many ways it helped to clarify my own understanding of what true individual to individual public interaction was about, while juxtaposing it with the same scenario mediated by an advertising experience.
AArrow Spinners, a young outdoor advertising company that employs energetic youth and dance spectacle to attract attention for advertising purposes, was performing at the top of the stairs on the southern end of Union Square. At the same time a band called Brothers Moving, a young group of buskers, was performing less than 200 feet away. Each group was enthusiastically entertaining and gathering a crowd quickly.
Video was being shot, and photos taken, by a variety of individuals passing through. I stood back and observed the crowd, realizing this was a unique situation for me. Those who seemed to be using the space more transiently were immediately attracted to the AArrow Spinners, taking photos as they moved from one end of the square to the next. Those individuals that were waiting for someone, or meandering about with some time to kill, generally stopped and gathered around the entire event.
Over the course of about 30 minutes I watched this group slowly make its way to what became a large crowd of nearly a hundred people seated in front of the Brothers Moving. Tips were being tossed in a guitar case and cd's were being purchased, all while the crowd enjoyed a very personal (no mics or amps) musical experience. This migration left the AArrow Spinners with a much smaller crowd watching their antics.
I have always assumed that street art/performance/interaction, are valuable tools that use the public environment to bring together people who would often otherwise not interact. In doing so they create a cohesion amongst the public that emphatically demands an autonomous public use of the public environment. To reiterate the need for a public space of congregation for the exchange of public ideas, is to present a vision of a public forum where in the individual triumphs over the imposition of a few. It mimics the rules of the medieval carnival, where top down authority gives way to individual visions of society as a whole, even if those visions do not support the positions of authority.
These two street performances, which I must grant to both the AArrow Spinners and the Brothers Moving, were exercising their own individual visions for the public environment. Both of them were creating an entertaining environment filled with public interaction and reaction. Yet the performance which most captivated the audience was the one without something asked of the viewer.
Everytime I became lost in the dancing and acrobatics of the AArrow Spinners, I was wrenched out of the experience by the constant realization that this was all being done for my allegiance. This was most hieghtened when the dance action was stopped by a move made to attract my attention to the text on the sign. My interest was constantly asked to confirm my consumption of the product being advertised.
As I stood in front of the Brothers Moving, I quickly became aware that I was tapping my foot and found I had not thought about what I was watching so much as had been enjoying it for quite sometime. The experience was immersive and interactive. I found myself making eye contact and smiling at the kazoo player as he strut a small circle in front of the crowd. My interest here was left to my own choosing and I found it very satisfying.
My thoughts wandered around as I stood there watching the band play. I thought about how fun it must be to sing in front of such a large crowd of strangers. I thought about what kind of people would stop and listen to this kind of music and why the crowd did not fit my expectations. I thought about dinner. I thought about what a nice night it was. All the while those thoughts went on uninterrupted.
I left Union Square thinking. I left Union Square excited about the city. I left Union Square happy to be living around such an incredibly rich group of people and happy I had a moment to sit with them. I did not leaving thinking about AArrow Spinners and whatever advertisement they had wanted me to take notice of.
When an outdoor advertising company like CBS uses the term "station domination" to refer to one of their advertising packages, you can be sure they mean to capture your attention. The experience is meant to "surround the consumer with multiple messages throughout their commute.", and ultimately reach a point of saturation that is unavoidable to the sighted. That being said, "station domination" is often no more than a handful of large vinyl stickers with the same or similar messages from a single company haphazardly strewn about a major NYC station. Recent incarnations of this have been the Converse One Star campaign and the Apple Chromatic campaign.
let it be known that the days of these relatively benign attempts to harness your commute are over. They may not have a name for it yet, but the History Channel is embarking on "transit system domination", with an abundance of above ground and underground locations being used by the company.
Underground, the normal platform advertising locations are being used in conjunction with the above ground Urban Panels, as well as the exteriors of MTA buses, which we are all familiar with. Alongside this, the first (S) shuttle line full subway car wraps were debuted with History Channel ads.
Another new form of transit advertising the History Channel has been using is adhered to the exteriors of the 1, 2, and 3 trains similarly to the exteriors of MTA buses. By not only using every transit advertising opportunity available, but being the first to dominate both an entire train and an entire line, the campaign has gained unprecedented placement in a commuter's daily routine.
And yet what prompted me to write this post was what I found when exiting the station. Both AM NY and Metro NY, free newspapers with mostly bogus news and Hollywood coverage, had full page advertisements wrapping their entire paper on the morning of Friday, October 24th.
Instead of reiterating the devastating effects of advertising on the unprotected psyche, especially at such a vulnerable time as during the morning commute, I want to visualize where this process is going. With the proper coordination of outdoor advertising firms, which is apparently happening before our eyes, and at a very fast pace, it should be feasible to create a "citywide domination" campaign which would take advantage of all the forms of outdoor advertising this city has to offer. These might include billboards at the major automobile entrances and exits to our city, like bridges and tunnels. It would obviously include large purchases of telephone kiosks, bus shelters, and NPA wildposting sites to cover the city streets. One can only begin to imagine the depth to which this could be taken when one begins to think about the incredible number of outdoor advertising operations the city is now home to.
Maybe this would only be feasible for a day, but the affect would be overwhelming. If you can imagine every outdoor advertisement you see in a day all with a similar message, you are beginning to get the idea. The scale which we are talking about here is obviously outside of our normal comprehension, but can be glimpsed in the History Channel's recent attempt to consume the NYC subway system under one message, and that is to watch Cities of the Underground on Sundays at 9pm.
And what would a city feel like with one ubiquitous advertisement, covering all the myriad outdoor advertising locations, floating across our periphery?
Note: This should not be taken lightly. With the advent of digital billboards, digital phone kiosks, digital taxi toppers, digital urban panels, and digital bus exteriors, we gain the ability to tune all of these disparate outdoor advertisements to the same advertisement all at once. Recent inventions used by Titan Outdoor already allow them to change exterior bus ads as they roam around from one different neighborhood to another. It's not hard to imagine entire areas being dominated by certain specific advertisements at different times of day according to the usage. Or maybe ads on bus shelters, taxi toppers, and bus exteriors all changing to the same ad as they come in proximity to each other, thus creating nests of advertising where one would be hard pressed to escape the message...Cities of the Underground, Sundays at 9pm...
I posted about this illegal billboard on illegalbillboards.org a few days ago and Rami Tabello from illegalsigns.ca, being the most versed person I know on Illegal billboards, picked it up and gave it some interesting back story. This sign is not only illegal for not complying with its permit but in fact it was removed by the DOB because of its illegality approximately 3 months ago. The fact that it has been rehung is proof of the blatant disregard outdoor advertising companies have towards the laws of NYC and towards the interests of its citizens.
We’ve written quite a bit about fascia signs on mural permits. In fact, the City of Toronto is now being sued by Titan Outdoor over the issue. Toronto is not the only city with a vinyl sign on a painted sign problem. There is a lot in common between New York City and Toronto. Billboards for one.
This article from the New York Times from is from 1998:
City Councillor Duane recently wrote to the Commissioner of Buildings, Gaston Silva, saying that he fears the department ”is issuing blanket approvals for these signs without regard to building codes, zoning regulations, or their appropriateness.”
The article then goes on to say:
Billboards are permitted, with restrictions, in the parts of downtown that are zoned for manufacturing. They are banned in historic districts, though painted advertisements are allowed on some buildings. And within 100 feet of a residential zone or park, billboards are allowed only if they face at least 165 degrees away.
So the NYC code has more permissive regulations for painted advertising.
The photograph above, from IllegalBillboards.org, is of Fuel Outdoor’s illegal billboards at 64 3rd Avenue. A complaint was filed against the sign on August 14, 2006. Then in December 2007, Fuel Outdoor obtained a permit to paint a sign on this wall.
The permit appears to specify that there was an existing legal non-conforming painted sign on this wall. We would doubt that.
The language advertising companies use is often indicative of their motives. When Titan Media declares that their new digital bus ads are "bright and unavoidable..", it gives you a good sense of what their intentions are. And when outdoor advertising is talked about as being "bright and unavoidable", the average citizen should realize that this means they will be absorbing these messages even if they think they are hardened New Yorkers trained at keeping their eyes glued to the pavement as they pass through their public environment. We should not have to physically alter the way we move and visualize our public space in order to avoid contact with the "bright and unavoidable". Instead we should demand our visual environment back from outdoor advertising and perpetrate its removal in any way possible.
The MTA is currently testing out new digital screens that display ads on the sides of buses running on the M23 route. The screens, which use GPS technology to change according to each neighborhood's demographic, are being installed by New York-based ad company Titan Worldwide; the company's website declares that the 12-foot displays "are bright and unavoidable and will enable advertisers to target mass audiences by time of day, block, zip-code, demography and ethnicity." Yay!
As Titan's marketing director tells the Post, "In the morning, we can show Starbucks, and on the way home from work, a Budweiser ad." You can see where this is going; Bugaboo ads for Park Slope, Rohypnol for the Meatpacking District, and in Williamsburg, flashy ads for Neighborhoodies and machetes. The M23's test run currently sports ads for Oreo, Sleepy's, Coca-Cola and Sprite; a spokesman says that if successful, they'll install them on about 200 buses next year. Then in 2010, up in your cerebral cortex! Click through for a video of the Dunkin Donuts bus ad in action.
VIA Ban Billboard Blight Ever wonder what it’s like to look out the window of one of those buses shrink-wrapped in advertising? This photo gives a pretty good idea. But maybe it doesn’t matter, because you’ll be glued to the monitor running video ads inside the bus, or mesmerized by the print ads covering most available surfaces. After all, by riding the bus you’ve voluntarily joined a captive audience, haven’t you? And where does it say you have the right to enter a public space without being confronted by a 360-degree assault of messages to buy products and services?
The MTA and other public transit agencies will eagerly tell you that selling public property as ad space is the alternative to higher fares. So why don’t we wrap the MTA headquarters building, which towers above its downtown surroundings and offers a panoramic view of the city? Why shouldn’t MTA executives and board members have the same kind of view as the riders inside the bus?
The Buildings Department says Chanel’s billboard on East 57th Street is illegal. (Photo: David W. Dunlap/The New York Times)
Vinyl billboard blankets have been draped over all kinds of buildings, but they’re not usually found obscuring the glittering luxury outlets along East 57th Street.
Chanel, however, has done that very thing: hanging a big piece of vinyl over its building at No. 15, promoting Mobile Art, an exhibition by the architect Zaha Hadid that opens in a temporary pavilion in Central Park next Monday. The show was described by my colleague Carol Vogel as a “provocative advertisement” in and of itself.
“Chanel, the fashion brand, commissioned Ms. Hadid to create the traveling structure to house works by about 15 hot contemporary artists,” Ms. Vogel wrote on July 24. “Each was asked to create a work that was at least in part inspired by Chanel’s classic 2.55 quilted-style chain handbag, so named because it was first issued in February 1955.”
So this billboard is, in effect, an advertisement for an advertisement. And it is illegal, the Buildings Department said, after City Room brought the sign to the agency’s attention.
Although the department was focused Thursday on an international conference about crane safety, Kate Lindquist, a spokeswoman, said it was issuing two summonses, returnable before the Environmental Control Board, for installing an advertising sign without a permit and for obstructing windows. Each violation carries a maximum penalty of $15,000, she said.
Telephone and e-mail requests for comment from Chanel over the last two days have gone unanswered.
The Chanel building is in a C5-3 zoning district, where the only signs permitted are those that are “accessory” to activities taking place on the same lot. In other words, Chanel can have a sign for its own store. But even allowable signs may not exceed 200 square feet in a C5-3 district, and the Mobile Art billboard would seem to be at least 2,000 square feet. Signs may not be higher than 25 feet above the curb, and again, the Mobile Art billboard fails the test.
Vanessa Gruen of the Municipal Art Society, which has fought billboards for more than a century, said that the content was irrelevant in this case. “Even if it’s for a theoretically good cause,” she said, “that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to advertise on buildings.”
THE New York City transit system is adding a new site for advertisements: the interior of subway tunnels.
Sam Chase for the History Channel
A History Channel ad covering a shuttle train in Manhattan.
David Crane/Los Angeles Daily News
Commercial images are projected in the tunnel during a train ride in Los Angeles
Starting next spring with the 42nd Street-Times Square shuttle, passengers will see advertising outside the windows as the train travels between stations. The messages will look rather like jumpy 15-second TV ads.
The tunnel advertising is part of an ambitious Metropolitan Transportation Authority plan to convert much of its real estate into advertising space. In addition to the tunnel ads, it will sell space on turnstiles, digital screens inside stations, projections against subway station walls, and panels on the outside of subway cars.
Advertisers are eager for any new way to capture consumers’ attention. The History Channel, which started to advertise on subway panels this month, wanted to get “buzz not only with viewers and consumers of our content, but buzz within the advertising community and buzz with key business partner influentials in this market,” said Chris Moseley, senior vice president for marketing at the channel.
And the authority wants revenue to help it cover its projected $900 million budget shortfall next year.
“In light of the fiscal difficulties that the M.T.A.’s facing, we have set out to basically look under every rock for ways that we can cut costs and raise revenue,” said Jeremy Soffin, a spokesman for the authority.
But some groups say the extension of advertising space is troubling.
“The subways are not a wholly noncommercial site already,” said Robert Weissman, managing director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington. “But there’s a big difference between signage and traditional billboards, and the new digital media and turnstile wraps and other innovations.”
Mr. Weissman added, “It just contributes to the overwhelming assault on people and their everyday lives that makes it increasingly challenging to escape commercial messaging.”
While the authority has long sold panels in the trains and billboards at the stations to advertisers, it began converting other parts of stations into advertising space only about a decade ago.
CBS Outdoor, which handles ad space in the stations, began selling entire stations to advertisers about 10 years ago, letting them wrap poles and put graphics on the floors.
More recently, it has offered stairs and the full interior of trains to advertisers for a technique known as a “wrap.”
And this year, it is getting even more creative.
“Advertisers, especially in this environment, are looking to do something different and be noticed,” said Jodi Senese, the executive vice president for marketing for CBS Outdoor. “When something is new, clearly there’s an opportunity to make a big splash,” she said.
This week, the company began testing advertising on a large display, almost the size of a movie screen, mounted above a passageway by the 7 train in Times Square.
Because the New York subway runs 24 hours a day, it is difficult to put ads on the far side of subway tracks. Consequently, CBS is considering projecting images across the track. They will be similar to ads that are projected onto station walls, which CBS began about two years ago. There is a projection ad for Asics in Union Square, in the passageway between the N, Q, R and W lines and the Lexington Avenue line, and one for the Navy at Grand Central, in the corridor to the shuttle.
Both the arms of turnstiles and the entire turnstile structures are available to advertisers.
And starting in 2009, CBS will sell advertisers exterior panels — thinner versions of the horizontal advertisements that buses carry — on the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and shuttle trains. These panels are already in place on some 1, 3, 4, 7 and shuttle trains, where the History Channel is the first advertiser to use them. It is promoting its “Cities of the Underworld” series.
The History Channel, owned by A&E Television Networks, also covered the exterior of the Times Square shuttle with advertising, which the transportation authority is considering allowing for other advertisers.
The channel’s media agency, Horizon Media, worked with CBS to persuade the transportation authority to allow the panels and exterior wrap, even creating a miniature model of the shuttle to show authority officials how it would look.
“We’re not just marketing the show in a traditional way, we’re creating an immersive kind of experience,” Ms. Moseley said. The tunnel ads are scheduled to be installed by spring 2009, and will be handled by SideTrack Technologies, a company in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It lines subway tunnels with strips of light-emitting diodes that are window height.
“We have a way of projecting multiple images on the side of a tunnel wall as a train moves from one station to the next station,” said Rob Walker, the president of SideTrack. The company shows about 360 images over a 15-second period and times the display of the images to the speed of a given train.
Mr. Walker compared it to a children’s flip book, where static images in rapid succession give the impression of movement.
“It’s just basic animation, but we can manipulate the images, we can change the ads, so every train that goes by can see a different ad,” he said.
The windows light up as if there were a television screen outside the window. SideTrack installed the system in the Los Angeles and London subways this year, and retailers including Target, Microsoft and Warner Brothers have used it.
An earlier version of the system, which uses printed panels instead of L.E.D. projections, is being used in Boston and San Francisco. Those require that workers go into the tunnels to put up the panels, which makes the ads difficult to install and change.
It will probably cost around $95,000 for a full month of ads in a tunnel, Mr. Walker said, but said that advertisers could book the system for short-term projects.
Mr. Koenigsberg of Horizon said that a prime outdoor billboard usually costs six figures, “so that kind of number doesn’t sound out of whack.”
He said he was interested in the tunnel advertising technology, but would want to ensure that subway riders wanted to see moving ads during their rides.
“The last thing you want to do is have inefficient waste in putting a message in front of someone where they’re not receptive to it,” he said.
When outdoor advertising is presented as the solution to our growing city budget failures in light of our ailing economy, we must remember that the proposed benefits are often not worth the loss of public space. Take for example the approximate 8,000 phone kiosks in New York that hold advertising content. That number is based on talking to the four companies, Van Wagner, Vector Media, Prime Point Media, and Titan media which operate phone kiosks in the city. Van Wagner has 3,000, Titan 1,000, Prime Point 800, and Vector who would not tell me anything, approximately 3,000 based on their presence in Manhattan which is similar to Van Wagners. Each phone kiosk has three ads attached to it, making there about 15,000 ads per month strewn across our streets and neighborhoods. For this the city collects about $13,000,000.00 dollars a year. that ends up being .00026 of New York's operating budget or 1/40th of one percent. When we are justifying the destruction of our public environment for incredibly small amounts of money we are hiding the commercialization of our public lives. This is not a budget problem issue so much as it is a result of the trend to finance our cities budgets through private as opposed to public agencies which often results in the lack of public control and accountability to how are cities are run and for whom they operate.
By Marlene Naanes
The budget crunch may be giving some New Yorkers "ad nausea," now that the city is thinking about selling ads on its buildings and vehicles.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn floated the idea of selling advertising space on city-owned buildings and vehicles. The idea is seen by some as a creative way to help fill huge city deficits, but some wonder how much more New Yorkers can take with ads hanging from buildings, encasing entire trains and soon to reach even the subway tunnels.
"It seems to make sense that there would be a saturation point," said Vanessa Gruen, director of special projects at the Municipal Art Society. "Once it spills out to residential areas … people object to having it in the neighborhood."
She added "I can't see Chanel or Gucci putting an ad up on a garbage truck."
James Cox, 39, of Bay Ridge, a train conductor, is philosophical about even more ads all around him."I think it's a good idea to make money, but it's just more visual pollution. It's inevitable though. They're just going to make the city a big advertisement."
The proposal comes as the council considers the governor's study of leasing the state lottery, highways and bridges to generate revenue. Quinn said her staff has been discussing similar ideas but that she had not considered any specific properties, according to the Associated Press. "It's an exercise we should conduct to see what possibilities are there," she said Wednesday at a Citizens Budget Commission breakfast, where she discussed the global financial crisis. "There might not be any, but there might and it's certainly worth going and seeing if anything can be found."
The city could generate up to $10 million to put toward billions in deficits by selling ads on garbage trucks and city vehicles, according to one estimate. The city is facing a $2.3 billion deficit in the coming fiscal year and $5 billion in future gaps, which will widen with the current problems on Wall Street. Ads on trains and buses are a normal part of New York's landscape, but garbage trucks are a new frontier, possibly a profitable one despite a faltering economy,
Bringing light to the Nike ACG Boots “The Strength Inside” campaign, Nike Sportswear partnered with a handful of high school teens in and around New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore to create a photographic journal representing the concept of “What strength means to you”. The Center for Arts Education (NYC) and the Peace and Love (Philly/B-more) organization brought over 250 kids together for the billboard campaign as one picture from the following neighborhoods/cities were chosen: Queens, Harlem, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Baltimore. The winning entries from each city/borough will have their images displayed on billboards during the month of January in 2009. Two of the winners seen here include Brooklyn winner Kimone Napier (Billboard located at the corner of Flatbush Ave. & Washington Ave., Brooklyn, NY) and Queens winner Cindy Bencosme (Billboard located at the corner of Jamaica Ave & Sutphin Blvd, Queens, NY).
Giving children access to their own forms of personal communication in the public is a vital way to invigorate peoples investment in their community and public space. Not only do the children understand how their ideas can become a part of the public dialogue but also others within the community bear witness to alternative voices controlling the subject matter of visual communication. It can be extremely empowering to individuals and communities alike and should not be taken lightly. This video of Tom14 speaks to the importance of such community interaction.
Bringing light to the Nike ACG Boots “The Strength Inside” campaign, Nike Sportswear partnered with a handful of high school teens in and around New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore to create a photographic journal representing the concept of “What strength means to you”. The Center for Arts Education (NYC) and the Peace and Love (Philly/B-more) organization brought over 250 kids together for the billboard campaign as one picture from the following neighborhoods/cities were chosen: Queens, Harlem, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Baltimore. The winning entries from each city/borough will have their images displayed on billboards during the month of January in 2009. Two of the winners seen here include Brooklyn winner Kimone Napier (Billboard located at the corner of Flatbush Ave. & Washington Ave., Brooklyn, NY) and Queens winner Cindy Bencosme (Billboard located at the corner of Jamaica Ave & Sutphin Blvd, Queens, NY).
Giving children access to their own forms of personal communication in the public is a vital way to invigorate peoples investment in their community and public space. Not only do the children understand how their ideas can become a part of the public dialogue but also others within the community bear witness to alternative voices controlling the subject matter of visual communication. It can be extremely empowering to individuals and communities alike and should not be taken lightly. This video of Tom14 speaks to the importance of such community interaction.
